![]() Not that there is the greatest variety of material within those 20-something hours, mind, as it’s essentially the same short piece repeated 840 times. Satie’s Vexations of 1893 lasts well over twice that length. No record is made of how many attended those performances… or, more to the point, how many were still there at the finish. At time of writing, it has yet to be recorded or broadcast, and has enjoyed just nine performances, all at the supremely talented (and, clearly, indefatigable) hands and feet of Kevin Bowyer. Perhaps not surprisingly, it’s never really caught on. Completed by the English composer in 1932, this work for solo organ lasts a mighty nine hours. The BBC Music Magazine team is proud to boast at least three organ music enthusiasts in its number – or ‘organ bores’ as the unenlightened sometimes like to jest – but even we think we might draw the line at sitting through the entirety of the Second Organ Symphony by Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji. ![]() Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji: Organ Symphony No. It’s an entertaining listen, though quite what Biber’s own audiences would have made of it is anyone’s guess.ĥ. For instance, the section called ‘Die liederliche Gesellschaft von allerley Humor’ has the orchestra playing in eight different keys simultaneously to depict drunkenness, while ‘Mars’ sees the double bass stick a piece of paper beneath the strings to create a rasping sound. Depicting life in an army camp, effects galore are employed by the composer to paint the musical picture just as he wanted it. Usually a composer of utmost craft and refinement, Biber went off on something of a tangent with his 1673 Battalia for string orchestra. We begin our survey of all things eccentric in the Baroque period. What are the strangest pieces of classical music?ġ. Here, we take a look at 15 pieces of the strangest music, from the engagingly amusing to the downright barmy… Cage, of course, was writing in a notably experimental era that produced all sorts of wonderful weirdness, but the boundaries of musical convention have always been there to be tested – composers had been doing daft things for centuries before Cage and co. Whatever, it will always hold a proud place in the list of the strangest music ever written. Most view it with wry amusement, others (ie men with beards) value it as an important exercise in making us re-think the very concept of music. Today, it can be downloaded on iTunes, watched on Youtube and there is even a 4’33” app. John Cage’s famous 4’33” consists of 273 seconds in which no one does anything at all, yet has enjoyed cult status since its ‘composition’ in 1952.
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